A Night With the Lads
by Daddyd's Fan fiction
Summary: Summary : Same as title


I'm still not entirely sure how I've convinced Xero to come to a Pride event. It didn't take nearly as much coercion as I thought it would, either.

We packed some stuff, left Mace with a babysitter, and then hopped a train to stay in Tokyo for a long weekend with Seiki and Twister . At their apartment. This is gonna be... Interesting.

The train pulls into the station a little after noon. Xero and I collect our baggage and make our way up from the platform to the main area. We scan our tickets and go through the gates, and—

That's about when I feel too overwhelmed. We're in one of the biggest stations in the country and I have no idea how to even get to Seiki's apartment. Which exit do we take? How do we even know where we are?

Having grown up in Tokyo, Xero is confident that he can get us to the right place. When I pause to shove down my anxiety, he realizes that I've fallen behind. Xero backs up a few steps and grabs my hand, tugging me along through the crowds. A duffel bag hangs from his shoulder, but doesn't swing around practically at all. He moves through the people so fluidly it's amazing! I've got a backpack on, and I'm afraid that if I so much as turn to the side too quickly, I'll knock someone off their feet.

The stores and shops go by in the blink of an eye. We're traveling at a good clip, probably cause Xero can tell how stiff I've become. I don't like being packed in so tightly. It's been a few years since I've been to Tokyo. The trip to Okina is much easier, less crowded.

Outdoors finally, I heave a sigh. Xero guides me to the side of the building, where there's a ledge I can on sit for a minute.

"See why I hate cities?" he quips, eyeing the passersby as if they're all criminals. A laugh escapes me. "What?" Xero questions.

"Nothing," I shake my head. "You just... Seem pretty uptight yourself."

"I am," he guardedly replies. "But one of us had to find the exit."

Xero raises an eyebrow as if daring me to poke fun at him again. I smile and stand instead. "Show me where to go."

My boyfriend nods and I take his hand again. We walk for a good ten minutes before reaching the building where my friends live. It's tall and new-looking. I wonder what they've been doing on the side that they can afford something so nice. Xero is eyeing the front door suspiciously as well.

I shrug and ring the buzzer. Twister answers and tells us to come up.

We climb three stories, then walk down a hall to their apartment. I knock once, and open the door—Twister has said he'd leave it open—and damn am I impressed!! My eyes sweep around to take in the sparse, modern-looking living room, the small kitchen, and two doors that must be a bedroom and a bathroom.

"Damian!" Twister grins, coming out of what's gotta be the bedroom. He's carrying a textbook that he sets on a desk near the window. "Glad you came," he says, walking closer.

My old friend holds up his hand for a high-five and I comply. Then he turns to Xero, clearly trying to look at least a little happy. "Grande," he nods, sticking out his hand. Xero's mouth quirks in distaste, but he reaches out to shake.

"Where should I put our stuff?" I ask Twister, trying to distract him and Xero from their staring match.

"Anywhere is fine," he gestures around the room. "One of you can sleep on the couch, and we have sleeping bags in the closet."

"Okay," I nod, taking Xero's duffel and lining our stuff up against the wall. "What time will Seiki be back? When do we have to leave? Anything I can do to help out? Cook?" I nervously fire off questions.

Twister shakes his head slowly, looking like he doesn't even know which question to respond to first. Xero chuckles.

"Just—Watch some TV for a bit. Seiki's in class for another hour and then we'll get ready to go. We can eat in Nichou."

"'Get ready'?" Xero questions.

"Yeah! Weren't we gon—"

I give Twister a small shake of my head. "Well, Seiki's gotta change and all," I break in. "You know how it is, Xero."

"I guess," he rolls his eyes, and takes a seat on the couch.

Twister walks to his desk to finish up whatever he's been doing and I follow him. "He doesn't know about all the stuff that goes along with this. Seiki said it would be better not to give him any warning." I suppress a smile.

Yousuke sighs. "Seiki can get him to agree to anything, huh?"

"Pretty much," I agree, a smile spreading across my face. I always love seeing my friends, but I really enjoying seeing Xero and Seiki get together. They don't see each other too often, these days. Seiki's got school and Xero's got work. And we're a few hours away from each other.

I let Twister get back to his work and join Xero on the couch. He's flipped to the news, so I watch for a little while, then pull out a crochet project I brought along to finish while we wait.

Seiki arrives home sometime later, happy to see us. He drops his stuff and comes right over to shake our hands. He looks as if he wants to hug us, but holds back—On account of Xero, I'm assuming. I can't help smirking and Seiki catches me, laughing lightly.

Then he heads into his room to change and grab his supplies. Twister sneaks in, as well, and Xero gives me a funny look, as he's just realizing that they share a room. "They—They're—Ahh..." Xero stammered.

I have to bite my tongue. "Yeah," I tell him. "Why do you think they invited us out tonight? Just cause we're queer?"

"Damian—You know I don't like that word," Xero sighs, missing the point.

I shake my head and scoot over to throw my arm around him. "Seiki didn't tell you already?" I thought he had. Especially since they're living together now...

"Seiki," Xero says his name slowly, trying to think. "Maybe I'm too dense." He shrugs, more surprised than off-put.

He drops it after that, pulling me closer to him and continuing to watch television. When the guys reappear, I put my project away then go back to sitting next to Xero. He glances at me quickly, eyebrows scrunching together.

"What is it, Damian?" he questions, looking a little shifty.

"Nothin'," I beam, putting my arm around him. Xero is staring at me way too hard, like he just knows somethin's up. Seiki is giggling, coming from the other direction, so I wrap my other around Xero's front to keep him still.

Damian—" he says, trying to sound stern and stuff. Twister looks super uncomfy grabbing Xero's head to keep him still as Seiki attacks him with face paint. "Oh what the hell!" Xero grumbles. "What is this crap?!"

It doesn't take more than two minutes. Seiki is as deft as ever. He's quick to paint the proper stripes for the bear flag just below his eye, while Xero looks about to explode any second.

"What did you do to me?" he snaps when we all back off.

"Turn," I command, and Xero swivels his head to show me the other side of his face.

I break out in a grin. "Looks good, man!"

Xero reaches up to touch it and I slap his hand away. "Hey!!" he yelps.

"Don't do that!" I tell him. "You'll smudge it. They worked hard." He sighs and pinches his eyes shut.

Seiki holds out a mirror and Xero looks into it. "What is this? Why's it all brown?" He's puzzled, which confuses me too.

"Aren't you a bear?" I ask.

"Well, ah," he squints. "I guess... I am. I've never thought about it before. I did get paranoid when someone called me kuma-kei once. Like they thought I was too hairy, but..." Xero frowns, seeming annoyed.

Forgot self-conscious? It's not something I can imagine.

"Do you not wanna be a bear?" I ask instead, trying not to be too judgey. His hair doesn't really bother me. I kinda like his beard now.

"Hnn," Xero folds his arms. "I guess I'm alright with it." He runs a hand over one of his cheeks, feeling his short beard.

"C'mon, you look really good!" I end up bursting out. Seiki snickers and Twister shudders. They're painting bi flags on each other's arms, and then they'll give me a pan one, like I said I want.

Once Xero's stopped giving me a really uncomfortable look, he asks me how we know all these different flags. "We looked 'em up online," I explain. "Thought it'd be fun if we all had like, specific stuff that applies to us."

"What are you getting?" he asks, cupping my chin in his hand and staring at me intensely, like he's trying to guess what's going on up in my head.

"P-pan," I stutter.

Xero raises an eyebrow. "That's..."

"Everyone," I supply. "I don't have a specific preference, just that that's I like the person. Coulda been a man or a woman or someone else entirely."

"'Someone else'?"

I nod. "Yeah. It doesn't matter to me how people are built or identify, as long as I click with them."

"Could've been anyone, huh?" Xero teases me, smirking in a shithead way. "Didn't have to be me, hnn?" He pokes my side and I swat his hand away.

"You know it had to be you," I quietly answer, making sure the other two are too busy with they're doing to notice before I lean in to kiss him. I can see Xero grinning crookedly when I pull away. He was definitely just fucking with me.

I get up and go find the bright yellow tank top and pink shorts I brought with me. It don't often dress in loud colors anymore. It'll be fun to wear something obnoxious.

I walk back over to Xero after I change and he's clearly trying not to grimace. "So ostentations..."

"That's the kinda day it is," I answer. "It's fun!" I declare, tugging on the hem of my shirt to get a better look at the fabric.

Xero doesn't seem convinced, staring hard as if that'll make me change. No way.

Seiki comes over to me to paint some stripes around my bicep, and we're ready to leave. He's wearing a goofy rainbow, while Twister doesn't look too different from normal—He's clearly the one being dragged along. He's not as stubborn or quiet as Xero, and I bet he'll have fun, but he seems unsure if this is what he wants to do.

"Let's go," Seiki tells us, grabbing Twister's hand and heading out the door.

"Ready, old man?" I grin at Xero.

He rolls his eyes. "Never thought I'd be going to something like this," he admits. "I'm more of a..." he trails off.

I wait to see how he's gonna phrase this while Seiki locks up. We're on our way down the stairs when he finally decides how to put things: "I'm from a generation where we didn't talk about these things."

"You've always been very to yourself," Seiki comments.

Xero's mouth quirks a frown at that, and I yank on his hand to stop him from whatever he was thinking about. "Well, things are different now, right?"

"Sure are," my boyfriend nods to himself a few times.

Well that didn't go as I expected.

At all...

Several hours later, I'm dragging my drunk-idiot-definitely-high-boyfriend back up the flights of stairs to his Friend's apartment. Seiki kindly gave me a key when Xero started gravitating towards different vendors and events than he and Twister were interested in. I didn't care too much, and enjoyed watching him start to let loose. When the separation of our group started to seem more than likely, I backtracked enough to find my friends and let them know.

By the time I found Xero again, he'd apparently befriended a group of drinkers who were plying him with beer. He's following along, probably for the free stuff people keep passing around. There's food too, but I don't trust it. Those guys seemed like bad news.

Sure enough, they dragged him along, getting hammered and shit. Xero didn't wanna leave, and isn't one to pass up free drinks, or food, or anything free, really. So he ate and collected his way through side streets and mini-malls. And that's how I ended up carrying a bag full of shit he's not going to even bring home—Never mind use. There are wristbands and buttons (he'd die before showing off how gay he is back home), pamphlets (for places in Tokyo we'll never go), host cards (what the fuck Xero), empty bottles and cans (who knows), food he didn't finish (including an unopened bag of "cockies"—yes you read that right), two tiny flags (I only know what one of the patterns even is), a handful of free condoms (we don't even use condoms cause we're clean), orange plastic sunglasses (I should make him wear these home), and a joint.

Someone literally passed Xero an unlit joint and he just... Threw it in the bag. "The cops are everywhere," he slurred, eyes jagging around. The man didn't seem to care, and thought it was cute, laughing and slapping his back as if he didn't just pass blatant drugs to a cop.

So glad to be back. I heave a giant sigh as I haul Xero's ass through the door. His wardrobe has been heavily modified, which I'm sure he'll regret when he's sober.

He lost his shirt in a bar, threw it at someone when he won this contest and they gave him an ugly pleather vest. Someone spray-painted what I thought was a slur—but he thought was funny—on the back of his jeans, too. I saw it happen from across the room and was too exhausted to care. He thought it was hysterical, and didn't stand still enough, so it really just looks like a bunch of neon green lines. That'll be a pain in my ass to clean.

I guide him to the couch so we can just go to sleep, but Xero isn't having it. He starts taking his clothes off, then rips the canvas bag from my hands and starts digging through it. He groans when he can't find whatever he's looking for. Xero takes off his jeans and picks up—holy shit where did he get that—a rainbow T-back. After he manages to squirm out of his boxers, giggling hysterically, he gets it halfway on before giving up.

I pinch my eyes shut and count to ten. When I open them, he's asleep. I sigh and fix the stupid thing, then try to slide pants on him. They don't quite go all the way up, but it's good enough. I throw a blanket over Xero and set up the sleeping bag for myself. I'm out pretty quick.

When the door opens, and Seiki and Twister are back, chatting quietly, I feel myself coming-to. At some point Xero has gotten off the couch and sprawled himself half on top of me. He's laying his head on my chest, his body at a weird angle to mine. It can't be comfy, but he's snoring like usual.

Twister grumbles when he's close enough to see us. I frown, there wasn't much I could do when I wasn't even awake. "Sorry," I whisper. "Heavy sleeper."

"You or him?" he moans.

I shrug. Seiki is a few steps behind his own boyfriend, and he smiles at me, holding up a hand in greeting. "Have fun?"

"Eh," I reply. "You?"

"Mm," Seiki eagerly nods. He tosses me something from his pocket. I can't see what it is, so he motions for me to bend it. The thing crackles and lights up yellow—A glow stick.

"Ooh," I breathe, giving it another snap and seeing the crystals activate in one of my favorite colors.

Seiki grins at me. "Been a while, huh?"

"We never really had these when I was a kid," I tell him. "Always thought they were pretty."

"Should last a few days," Seiki tells me. And then Twister's calling for him in the other room, so he says "goodnight" and leaves me alone.

I place the glow stick behind my pillow and shift Xero a little, so he's at a better angle. He lets out one really loud snore, but doesn't wake up. Coulda been worse, today. I'd say it was pretty fun, even if Xero went kinda nutso.

Wonder if he used to do stuff like this, when he was younger? Was he always bisexual?

I'd like to ask him sometime, to get to know what he was like when he was my age. I start trying to figure out how to even bring up the subject, but my eyes are starting to close. I'm out pretty quick. Even if I had fun, it was real exhausting.

I don't get to sleep nearly long enough, and of course we wake way before the other guys. Xero's up first, and his squirming pulls me from sleep.

"What am I wearing?" he groans. "Feels like something's strangling my dick."

"That would be the weird underwear you thought was hysterical."

Confused, Xero reaches into his pants and feels around. "I'll be damned," he breathes, clicking his tongue. Something else clicks, too. Metal against tooth. And that's when his expression turns to absolutely fucking disturbed.

I can't help the childish grin that spreads across my face as he remembers the other thing. The thing I tried my best to stop him from doing.

Xero swallows hard, frowning, then sticks out his tongue. "Thit," he tries to swear, tongue still hanging out. He pulls it back in, more annoyed than anything. "That's gonna be a huge pain in the ass," he groans, apparently less than thrilled with his tongue piercing this morning.

"You wouldn't lemme talk you out of it," I tell him, trying to be serious.

"No," Xero sighs. "No, I believe that..." I tilt my head, confused as to why he even wanted it in the—

"I used to have one," my boyfriend explains, scratching his cheek self-conciously. "Used to have a few, err—discreet—piercings. Took 'em all out years ago, though. Before I got married."

I nod slowly. That makes sense.

"Not that you'd care," he teases, smirking and pinching my ear. I roll my eyes as he fingers my earrings. "You don't, do you?" It's more questioning as he repeats it.

"No," I snort, grabbing his hand. Xero smiles weakly and yawns.

He finally sits up and looks around at the mess he made, that I tried to clean. "No one will notice this, anyhow." He seems pretty unconcerned, but I guess he knows what he's talking about.

Xero rises and starts to sort through the finds he left in a pile. "Where's that from?" he questions, wrinkling his face at the sight of the garish vest.

"Yeah it's from—" I start, then shake my head. "You know what? Let's play a game called 'pretend you didn't drag my to a place with a name like that'."

"This the name?" he snickers, trying to be quiet. Which is prolly what makes me giggle, too.

"I hope not," I answer with as much of a glare as I can manage.

Xero chuckles and folds it into his bag, way too self-satisfied. "Bet I looked hot."

"Maybe if you weren't so smashed," I return, snuggling deeper into the sleeping bag. "You really gonna keep all that stuff in the bag?"

He hums as he takes a look, separating out the junk. "Most of it can go."

I feel myself cracking a smile. "Thought so."

"But this makes for a nice souvenir," he announces, shit-eating grin and all. "So..." Xero trails off. "About ready to go?" He sets his hands on his hips and glances at our packed bags.

"You think I'm wearing this home?" I question, pulling at my pajamas, and his eyes widen. Forgot in his rush to get out, huh? "We're not gonna wait till they get up?" I ask, honestly disappointed.

Xero throws a sideways glance at Seiki's room. "Hnn," he hums. "Don't know how I feel about that..."

I bite my lip, but stand and walk over to him, silently pulling out my clothes. "You can't feud with Twister forever," I say after I've changed. He starts to protest, so I talk over him. "Save it, old man."

His face crumples, and Xero's shoulders sag. "It really upsets you that much?"

"You're the one who told me to make up with him, cause he's my friend." I fold my arms and stare him down. "And what do you think happened when they found your ass passed out last night?"

"Yeah," he grumbles, wavering. I can see that he doesn't wanna make things worse between us than they already might be. "Okay. How about we get coffee and bring it back?"

"From where?" I reply. "A vending machine? It's not even seven!"

Xero purses his lips, and thinks. "I could use the walk," he jokingly tells me, rubbing his neck. I wave him along, I don't really care as long as we can say a real 'goodbye'.

Xero changes and then we leave the small apartment in search of drinks. He walks a little ahead of me, thinking he's funny as he pretends to leave me behind while I lock up—But the joke's on Xero. Him forgetting is a given, but...

I can see something I had forgotten entirely. You can clearly read the markered-letters spelling "neko" on the back of his neck. I smile to myself.

I won't tell him till we're home. I take out my phone and snap a pic when I get close enough. He gives me a curious look, unsure. "Just a souvenir," I say as he grabs my hand.

There isn't a soul on the streets, not even the cleaning crews you normally see on Sundays. We find a machine with his brand of coffee and sip our drinks quietly by the river, enjoying the cool morning.


End file.
